Is A Bystander Associated If A Crime Has Been Committed In The Vicinity?
If you get arrested, you are. Some people may just choose not to stick around, not to cooperate with the police because of this. I don’t know what the results of this are going to be but if you’re arrested or if you’re involved in a crime, if you’re convicted especially, it is something which has the potential to put you on a priority for deportation. Just to understand what that all means, the government can’t look at everybody, they can’t get rid of everybody so they’ve set priorities on what types of crimes they’re going to look at. Under President Obama, it was simply violent, convicted criminals; a lot of those people who fought their charges are not going to get the benefit of that.
What Happens When An Immigrant Is Arrested And Charged With a Crime?
In many cases, it’s unclear what’s happening right now. It appears that if the police are working with authorities that there’s going to be a notification sent to Homeland Security and the Homeland Security is going to make a decision as to whether it is someone that they are looking to pick up or not. There are a whole host of procedural guidelines that they follow but there are also some cities which they call themselves sanctuary cities where they don’t report this information to the federal government and Mayor De Blasio in New York got himself in a big mess when he said we’re not going to report this stuff, for instance it’s just a DWI, it’s not a big deal, no one got hurt.
The next day, he got a call from the Mothers Against Drunk Driving about how he had undercut their message of the last 30 years and they were not too pleased with it. I don’t think he’ll be talking about that again. So there’s a lot of politics going on here. There is a politics about the state of union address, you have the president address families of people who had family members killed by someone who is in the country illegally. So is that most of the people who are here? No, of course not. But there are attempts to use all of this for politics on both side of the equation and in the middle, gets caught the person who is arrested of a minor crime and now they have to pay for the politics with his ability to remain in the country or her ability to remain in the country.
What Rights Does An Immigrant Who Is Arrested For A Crime Have In The United States?
The question is are you going to be able to go to anyone? We talked previously about the bail reform changes that have been made and how there’s going to be an automatic detention under bail reform. Well, the same thing is going to happen with access to counsel. Everyone has the right to an attorney if they can afford one. One of the things that happens is if you have an ICE detainer on you, it’s a different system and it’s a lot harder to get out, a lot harder to post bail and that system has not been reformed. This is really a long answer to a simple question but yes, you’re going to have a right to counsel for your criminal law matter.
In New Jersey, right now, the trend is we’re moving towards right to counsel, towards an immigration lawyer but that’s really something you have to take on your own. If you can’t afford an immigration lawyer, the government is not going to pay for it. So it’s best to have someone who has some knowledge in the area, who knows somewhat what’s going to happen and it’s not like your criminal defense lawyer is going to be the same as an immigration lawyer who handles nothing but that topic. But they are going to be able to provide some information and most of the time what they’re going to tell you is go see an immigration lawyer.
Is There Any Sort Of Immigrant That Cannot Be Deported Or Has A Protected Status?
Anyone who’s a citizen is not going to have to worry about that. If you have resident’s status, you’re going to have less of a problem. But I am looking here at the executive order right now and it’s what people are calling a blueprint for mass deportation and it says that people that are now in their priority list are people convicted of any criminal offense, regardless of what the offense was, when it occurred, or the circumstances of conviction. The second is people who haven’t been convicted of a crime but have been charged with one.
The third is people who have simply broken a law with no charges or convictions resulting. Those are people who are going to now come within this, pretty much anyone who’s involved with the criminal law under that reading of the executive order will now come within the system. That’s why I am getting lots of calls from people who are either clients, former clients, or perspective clients who are very concerned about what their criminal situation means for them when they weren’t in the past.
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